


Something Funky

by highfunctioningsupersoldiersociopath



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dreamwalking, F/M, Flashbacks, Mission Fic, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2020-08-13 04:39:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20168290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highfunctioningsupersoldiersociopath/pseuds/highfunctioningsupersoldiersociopath
Summary: You go with Steve to check out some intel Fury has passed along. Things don’t go to plan, but S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn’t have recruited you if your ability to withstand pain most people can’t had been average. Will a knight in shining armour be necessary?





	1. Chapter 1

“Why are we here again?” This had to be the fifth time you’d asked this question, hoping to get a different answer from the previous one. You run your torch over the closest wall and grimace. It was a dank, dark grey that you could imagine being part of a lost underwater city given how much of the wet stuff was periodically drip-dropping from cracks in the ceiling.

“I’ve told you, this is where Fury said they’d be.”

“Look around you Steve, this place is abandoned. There won’t be anyone building anything in this place, let alone a missile. Especially if the power isn’t working.”

“Let’s check the place out anyway.” You could hear his resignation in accepting defeat—he knew you had a point.

“Well, okay, but all I’m saying is that Fury has been wrong before.”

From the corner of your eye, you saw Steve’s brow dip into a frown. You didn’t doubt the boss man’s decisions, but there had been times where making your own call against better judgement had proven to be the alternative that presented the desired outcome.

A movement echoes through the dark. You both freeze. A rat makes its way into the quivering spotlight from your torch, eyes glowing red, and then after a split second of indecision, scurries off in the opposite direction.

“Ugh.” You shake your head in disgust. “Rats.”

The long corridor you were walking down was coming to an end, splitting off into two opposite directions. The first doorway coming into view, you knew the time you’d be spending in this building would be stretching out into the unreachable distance; no matter how many chairs you stand on, you still cannot reach the top shelf.

“I’ll go right.” You say as you press your back against the wall, completely forgetting about how creepy it had looked under your torch beam, not caring an inch about dirtying the gear you wore, and peek around the corner. The Captain mirrors your actions against the other wall.

“Alright,” he agrees. “Keep me updated.”

You rest the hand holding your gun on your non-dominant arm, which happens to be clutching at your only source of light. You hope the battery doesn’t run out. You nod at Steve and head off alone down the corridor, deeper into the building.


	2. Chapter 2

Your boots were silent as they hit the concrete floor. You followed the beam of your torch, making sure to scan over the shadowy corners that could hide the monsters of nightmares.

The darkness seemed to be heavier in this part of the building, pressing down on you as if it wanted to reveal your deepest secrets. You weren’t afraid of the dark anymore, but the scared little girl inside of you forced your heart to beat faster than normal and the beam of your torch wavered slightly.

You wished Bucky was here to have your back, not that you’d say it out loud, of course. You could handle yourself. Taking a deep breath to steady your nerves, you pushed forward, keeping Steve updated of your whereabouts.

You were completely unaware of the silent predator following you in the shadows.

You creep through innumerable doorways and round so many corners you’re pretty sure you’ve been going in circles by the time you reach a room that could hold something important. Obviously abandoned in a hurry, the office you had just entered still had paper strewn across the desks as if someone had been working there only yesterday. It wasn’t the kind of mess one would expect had the place been searched and trashed in the process; this was orderly and there was a method to the madness.

Your eyes skimmed over a couple of desks, looking for anything that held any semblance of plans or blueprints. Nothing stood out.

“You found anything yet, Rogers?” you hiss, hoping for some good news.

“Nothing yet,” he replies, “you?”

“Nope.” Sighing, you endeavour to continue the seemingly fruitless search.

You’re on the far side of the room when you hear the smallest of noises from the corridor. You turn to investigate, but don’t get very far. A passing shadow, a dull glint of metal is all you can register before blinding, crippling agony sears through your mind and body, consuming you all at once like a tree being struck by lightning, going up in flames. You’re on your back but you don’t have the energy to cry out, a silent scream leaving your lips instead.

Through the buzzing fog and the waning instinct to get up and fight back, you see, under the desk next to you, a very distinct outline of missile construction papers.

The darkness comes from nowhere, but you’re too tired to fight it; the exhaustion of the past week finally settling in your bones, covering you like a warm blanket.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a longer chapter today :)

Waking up was the most painful thing you had ever done in your life, and you instantly regretted it. Your temples ached and it felt like there might be a cartoonishly large welt growing on the back of your head.

Assessing your situation, your realised you were sitting, limbs bound behind you with damp rope, and a piece of cloth fastened around your head and clamped between your teeth, also damp, this time with saliva. Gross.

As your vision started to clear, your surroundings were easier to note: a blackboard with chalk dust in arching swipes, chairs stacked against the wall. You were in a classroom.

What would they be teaching in a place like this? Cult stuff, probably.

“We need immediate assistance!” Steve’s voice was urgent through the comms device still tucked neatly away in your ear. “Agent Y/l/n isn’t responding.”

_Well, that’s because I can’t fucking speak, you idiot_, you thought at your teammate. Telepathic abilities would be great at this moment in time, but unfortunately, you weren’t blessed with such powers.

You groaned, hoping he would hear you though the cloth muffled the sound a bit.

Mistake.

From the haze of your peripheral vision emerged a lithe woman with ethereal silver hair. Despite the haze, you could make out that her face was too smooth and there weren’t nearly enough wrinkles for her hair colour to match her age.

“Y/n!” Steve’s voice rang through again, relief flooding through the evident panic. A little tension left your shoulders but your gaze remained trained on the woman in front of you, who was wearing battered Docs and fashionably stressed jeans.

“Y/n, I’m stuck in a room with super-strong reinforcement, I don’t know how it happened but I’m trapped and nothing will break this motherfucking door down!” he rushed out, before a grunt and a ringing bang of vibranium echoed down the line followed shortly by a defeated sigh. “But luckily they weren’t clever enough to block the signal for this frequency so I’ve called for back-up—just hang on in there, wherever you are, and we’ll get you out.”

The Captain’s words allowed some hope to blossom in your chest so you risked your situation even more by grunting an affirmative.

A withering sigh came from beside you—how had you not noticed the silver-haired lady move?—before you felt the slight tickle of your earpiece being removed. Steve’s voice became tinny as he started speaking again and your captor held the device up in the dim light and proceeded to drop it to the ground. You could only watch as she crushed it beneath her foot.

“Mmf mffm mmmf.” There wasn’t anything specific you wanted to say, you just needed to get the attention of the woman who seemed to know what she was doing.

“What was that? Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.” She gave a tinkling laugh before leisurely striding to where you were sat and slowly removing the cloth from your mouth, leaving it hanging around your neck. “What did you want to share, sweet pea?”

“Oh, not much really. I just have a few questions: What’s the weather like? Where am I? Oh, and I don’t know, maybe why the fuck am I strapped to this fucking chair?”

“Oh, darlin’,” she purred as she dragged a chair over from the corner of the room, swinging it around and sitting back to front. “Must you use such foul language?”

You let out a nervous, ragged laugh, unsure of what to expect from her. Her body language screamed calm and collected which was like watching someone stroll leisurely through woods that are burning and crashing around them. It perturbed you; there was a voice that sounded much like Bucky’s ringing through your mind, urging you to get out of there as fast as you could. Maybe if you played along and tried to radiate a calmness that matched hers, then things would go smoother.

“You have my most sincere apologies. I just can’t help myself sometimes, especially in this line of work, you know?” You tried to keep the sarcasm out of your voice because that would be like poking a bear with a stick.

“Oh, of course; and I imagine they must teach you how to cope in situations like this so I won’t be going easy on you.” She smiled lightly, false understanding then reassurance passing over her features like a slide show. “I think I’ll start with some light questioning and if that doesn’t work out then we’ll have to move on to more forceful measures. Okay?”

“Well, lady, that depends on the kind of questions you plan on asking.”

“Please, call me Sara.”

“Okay, Sara, what’s the first question?” If the circumstances were different, you might well have been in a press conference. The thought made you smirk, but you hoped you managed to play it off to Sara as encouraging despite being the one tied to a chair.

“Hmm, let’s see. I really should have made a list.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> backstory time!

Being on the run got boring sometimes. There would be periods that could last for several weeks on end where you would be holed up in your latest hide-away with nothing to do but stare at peeling wallpaper or watch paint slowly chip away to reveal the moulding plaster beneath. Books were always a possibility, but having too many would slow you down and leaving them behind was just not an option.

These would be the times when you would enter your mind, leaving your physical body behind, usually supine on a ratty mattress or lumpy sofa, and enter a world that could only be accessed by those who had had enough training to do so—or, in your case, could enter naturally, on a whim. Those who were not aware of the dangers this alternate reality possessed were likely to become ensconced in its enticements; their minds would remain trapped while their physical body slowly became untethered and would eventually cease to live. Too many were the belligerent spirits that remained, long since cut off from the real world as they knew it. For as long as humans could remember, this place had existed—parallel yet overlapping, changing as times changed.

You had to keep your wits about you, for sure. Yet for you, this place was one of retreat: a getaway from the horrors you had seen, the ones that haunted your dreams and lurked in the shadows of the day.

Gingerly, you rose from your perch on the edge of the mattress. The room was eerily quiet—this place always was when you first entered, your senses still adjusting to the new input. Dismissing it, you turned to see yourself lying prone in a well-used sleeping bag.

You hadn’t realised how sickly you looked. Sallow skin, hollowed cheeks, and heavy bags beneath your sunken eyes, lids closed as if truly asleep really painted a picture of the life you had been leading. There was a barely noticeable rise and fall to your chest and to any onlooker you may as well be dead.

Death was always another option, you supposed.

You moved around the small apartment with ease, making sure all of the windows were either locked or properly boarded up. You didn’t want any unwelcome visitors.

To the untrained eye, the streets that were normally so full of people bustling about would look barren and deserted—a ghost town. Now, translucent shapes moved about their daily lives, ignorant to any observer, ignorant to the world they were missing out on. Another reality that contained the life force of all living things, running like an electrical current, fuelling what most took for granted.

There was so much power within these walls.

From this perspective, many things were different: time did not necessarily have the same effect here than out there. It was mainly the little things. The paint of your stodgy, run-down, and abandoned apartment was not yet peeling and the linoleum tiles had not yet curled up at the corners. The buildings across the street appeared to be more full of life than they would normally while many of the trees had yet to catch up, and to the unobservant, would appear to be normal when they were really a few inches shorter than on the outside.

Out on the street, you wandered to the centre of town. Many faces passed you, many lives being lived, and you wondered how you could have ended up in a situation like this.

With a sigh, you entered the public park, the tall wrought iron gates not as rust-ridden as they should be. The crowds were thinner here and the fewer people there were, the better. You could plan out your next step and despite the birds chirping in your ears, there was always a sense of peace and serenity that washed over you in places like these.

The fountains were free of tourists at this time of year; they made a perfect thinking spot. Sitting on the edge of the furthest from any sort of humanity, you could let time sail past as it pleased while you were lost in the trails of your thoughts.

“Hi, my name’s Phil.”

Your mind whirled at the interruption as you twisted to glare at the speaker while chiding yourself for not being more vigilant and failing to notice anyone approach. There stood a man whose eyes held experience beyond his years and a kindness that, at this point, could only be compared to that of your late mother. He wore a neat suit and tie, but beneath it all, his being was bright and focused, similar to your own and it was clear that he had extensive training in the art of walking this land.

He held out his hand for you to shake.

“Phil Coulson.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay, now we know how you joined s.h.i.e.l.d.!


	5. Chapter 5

The throbbing of your left eye slowly draws you out of unconsciousness. It has swollen shut and you reckon it’s now a lovely shade of vibrant purple, maybe with some yellow shading around the edges.

That woman packs a punch.

There was something different now. You were standing, tied to a metal pillar, arms still bound behind you, the rope tighter than before. There was no way you’d be undoing those knots. You can see the chair you were previously in off to one side.

Your jaw and ribs also ache and it’s the kind that’s painful only if you think about it for too long. Oblivion, at this stage, was appealing as your only functioning eyelid drooped closed before you forced it open again, not allowing yourself to pretend you weren’t in this place with all hope of getting out alive slowly disappearing, but you had only just started to rile up silver-haired Sara and you felt like you could really get the ball rolling this time.

There was a clang of a heavy metal door closing somewhere behind you followed by a faint click of a lock. Then footsteps echoed throughout the room. By now you were familiar enough with Sara’s gait but it was masked slightly with the squeak of small wheels.

“Is that a fish tank? You’re seriously going to drown me in a fish tank?” You scoffed in disbelief as she wheeled a trolley into your line of sight. This would be a first, and a great tale to tell if you made it out alive.

Sara threw her head back in a laugh before saying, “Oh my, I thought you would like a good waterboarding session. And if you like,” she adds, almost as an afterthought, “I can put some fish in there to keep you company.”

You almost laugh.

Face to face, she traces an immaculately manicured nail up the column of your exposed neck, pausing at the junction where it meets your jaw, just above the where your pulse was hammering away. The tip of her finger was soft but you didn’t doubt her palms would be calloused with years of manual labour. Some things you just can’t hide from a trained eye and reasonable deductive skills.

“Hmm, this is my favourite part of the human body, y’know? It’s just so…” she has to pause to get the right word, while your brain is still racing out of control, trying to find a way out of this mess but Sara is good, she doesn’t make mistakes. “Erotic,” she finally finishes with a breathy laugh that tickles the shell of your ear. “It would be a shame to ruin it for your man. But that is exactly what I want to do.”

She slowly strides away without purpose as she reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a box of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Smokin’ kills, you know. Tar clogs up yer lungs ‘n’ stuff.”

“Well, at least I’ll live longer than you, sweetheart.” Sara chuckled, although you doubted it was in amusement.

She wanders back, taking a drag from the lit smoke, flicking the ash off to the side. You eye the orange glow and realise that maybe it was truly meant for you.

You make eye contact as she puts the cigarette to her lips, wishing you could read minds and discover her true intentions. Yes, she means to torture you until you give her the answer she wants, but then what? You doubted she would simply release you; Steve would be out there somewhere, hopefully searching for you depending on how much time had passed.

The puff of smoke lingers in your face before slowly drifting away.

Nothing happens, your eyes refusing to leave hers.

As quick as lightning, she forces the lit end of her smoke on to the exposed flesh of your neck. It burns, taking you by surprise and you hiss in response. You grit your teeth to prevent any more noises escaping. You refuse to give her the pleasure of causing pain, but something like this is low. She must be running short on options.

The fish tank sits silently in your periphery, mocking you.

The burning doesn’t ease and you wonder if it will leave a scar. “Ow. That wasn’t very nice.”

“Oh sweetie, it’ll only get worse if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

She grabs your jaw in one hand, sizing you up, trying to figure you out, intimidate you. You squint your good eye at her, and mutter just loud enough for her to hear, “Do it again, I dare you.”

She releases her hold on you and stalks away, your head bangs carelessly against the cool metal behind you. Pacing, she thinks aloud. “Why the fuck won’t you cooperate? I mean I know SHIELD is good, but everyone has a weakness. It is so obvious that your weakness is James Barnes, but he isn’t here, so there must be something else.” She drops the butt of the burnt-out cigarette to the ground, stomps on it and spins to face you. “Tell me what it is!”

You sniff, consider your answer. “No.”

A shriek fills the room as she rushes forward, hand extended towards your neck. It is filled with rage and desperation but your main concern is avoiding a vice-like grip that could certainly cause your demise.

You wonder how long it will take for you to blackout, for the blood supply to be cut from your brain. Your captor has quite large hands and as every breath you take starts to burn, as each inhalation becomes more and more difficult, the light-headedness finally appears. In the haze of suffocation, you wonder whether silver-haired Sara is actually a man in disguise. Drag isn’t uncommon these days.

A heavy bang of the door behind you being kicked open made Sara jump and relinquish their bruising grip on your neck. You would have laughed at their comic reaction if only you had the energy.

Red, white, and blue flies past you, hitting silver-haired Sara square in the chest, knocking the wind out of her sails and sending her to the ground. You breathe in a huge sigh of relief, the air in this stale room seeming fresher than it ever was; closing your eyes and sagging against your pillar, you finally let your guard down. You wouldn’t need to get out by yourself after all.

Your head suddenly feels heavy, a lead weight balanced on a paper straw, and the last thing you hear before the world suddenly goes dark and consciousness leaves you is the smash of glass breaking and the hiss of a gas being released.


End file.
